Walsh looks to new V8 Supercars career after dramatic finale

IPSWICH racer Ash Walsh farewelled the Dunlop series happy with his overall performance in 2014, but ruing what should have been at Sydney Olympic Park.

Preparing to join the Erebus V8 Supercars team in 2015, Walsh finished this year with a drama-packed stint in the Matt Stone Racing Team Falcon.

The Infants' Friend V8 Supercar driver was gunning to hold his second place in the championship.

He had to settle for third on 1373 points, behind winner Paul Dumbrell (1686) and Cameron Waters (1439).

Race 1 was a messy start with Walsh jumping then bogging down, relegating him to 15th place.

The Ipswich driver fought back well, getting as high as ninth until a duel with Ant Pedersen into Turn 8 was ruled out of order by the stewards. Walsh had to serve a Pit Lane Penalty drive through.

Resuming in 19th position, he again began carving his way through the field. However, with laps running out he could only recover to finish in 12th.

Sunday's race featured new qualifying and a fourth place start. However, the results seemed to mirror Saturday's race.

Walsh was battling with Taz Douglas for fifth spot when he dived down the inside of the #10 Falcon. The two collided and again the stewards deemed Walsh at fault. Another penalty resulted, with a drop back to 19th position.

The race was shortened from its scheduled 23 laps to 19 and again Walsh ran out of laps to recover, finishing his last Dunlop Series race in 11th place.

It was not the way Walsh had intended to leave the series.

However, as he moves on to the main Championship Series in 2015 with Erebus Motorsport, Walsh thanked his sponsors and the Matt Stone crew who had helped deliver so much success over the past three seasons.

"We just could not take a trick this weekend,'' Walsh said.

"I am disappointed for the Matt Stone guys who have worked so hard this year. We got caught out a bit in practice, but the car was not quite as good around this track as I had hoped.

"We were quick for sure but had to hustle to make ground and just lucked out with a drive throughs in both races. It meant we were really behind the eight ball as passing is so hard here.''